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ANNUAL SYMPOSIUM 2012
SATURDAY MARCH 24
On Site: Being at the Scene of Conflict
Vamik Volkan, M.D.
Leora Kahn, Executive Director of 'PROOF: Media For Social Justice'
Matthew Shaw, Ph.D.-Moderator
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On Site: Being at the Scene of Conflict
Varnik Volkan, M.D.
Leora Kahn
Matthew Shaw, Ph.D., Moderator
The Date: March 24th, 2012
The Time: 8:30AM - 12:45PM
The Place: Yale Child Study Center
Donald Cohen Auditorium
230 South Frontage Road
New Haven, Connecticut‘On Site’ examines the psychological experiences of participant observers at scenes of conflict. This year’s symposium will focus in particular on the intersection of photojournalism and psychoanalysis.
We will examine the psychological experiences of individuals bearing witness to conflict. To live is to live with conflict. In our relationships, through the media and within ourselves, tension abounds. As participant observers we must confront the limitations and complications of our role. Both psychoanalysts and photojournalists bear witness to extreme experiences and yet are not integrated into nor protected from these traumatic scenes.
Leora Kahn will explore the ways in which photojournalists and rescue workers affect and are affected by their role documenting and thereby participating in intensely tumultuous situations. Through her rescue work with survivors of ethnic violence, Leora will consider the varied roles she has occupied and her complicated thoughts and feelings about her participation. In this context, she will also discuss her close relationship with one of the Mengele twins over many years.Dr. Volkan will present a case report tracing the impact of a transgenerational transmission of trauma informing an individual’s character. He will explore the inner life of the individual born into trauma who then becomes the perpetrator. In so doing, he will challenge all of us to examine our emotional inheritances. He will explicate his psycho-political theory concerning the intergenerational transmission of trauma and its relationship to the formation of large and small group identities and the eruption of ethnic violence around the world.
There will be discussion periods after each talk and an open discussion at the end of the program.
Leora Kahn, Executive Director. PROOF
Leora Kahn is the Founder and Executive Director of PROOF: Media for Social Justice. She has been a photo editor for over 25 years working at Workman Publishing, Corbis, Time, The New York Times Magazine, Rolling Stone, The New Yorker, US News and World Report, the Ford Foundation, and the Annie E. Casey Foundation. She has curated exhibitions for ABC Television, Amnesty International, the Women’s Refugee Commission, and the Holocaust Museum of Houston. Ms. Kahn has numerous publications and her documentary film credits include Rene and I and Original Intent. She is a former Fellow at the Genocide Studies Center at Yale University, the recipient of the Adrianne de Rothschild Fellowship for Social Entrepreneurship, and a recent recipient of a Fulbright Specialist Grant.
Vamik Volkan, MD, DLFAPA, FACPsa
Dr. Volkan is the Founder and Director of the Center for the Study of Mind and Human Interaction at the University of Virginia. He is currently the Senior Erik Erikson Scholar at the Austen Riggs Center in Stockbridge, MA and is an Emeritus Training and Supervising Analyst at the Washington Psychoanalytic Institute in Washington D.C. Dr. Volkan has been nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize four times for his theoretical ideas and their application regarding psychopolitical underpinnings in ethnic conflicts, racism, national identity, terrorism, and societal trauma. Dr. Volkan is the author of over forty books and more than 400 scientific papers. He is currently writing a book with the working title, Without Bullets and Bombs: A Psychoanalyst’s Journey into the World of Politics.
Saturday, March 24, 2012
8:30am
Registration and Continental Breakfast
9:00am-9:05am
Opening Remarks, Matthew Shaw, Ph.D.
9:05am-10:00am
Leora Kahn, Executive Director, 'PROOF'-Reflections of a Researcher: In the Field with Genocide Testimonies From Survivors to Rescuers
10:00am-10:25am
Discussion
10:25am-10:45am
Coffee Break and Book Raffle
10:45am-11:45am
Dr. Vamik Volkan-Transmission of Trauma in Individual and in Group Psychology
11:45-12:45pm
Discussion
For further information contact:
Rachel Bergeron, Ph.D.,Registrar
441 Orange Street
New Haven, CT 06511
203.777.5049
2012 Symposium Committee:
Eileen Becker-Dunn, L.C.S.W., Co-Chair
Matt Shaw, Ph.D., Co-Chair
Rachel Bergeron, Ph.D.,J.D.
Deborah Fried, M.D.
Lisa Marcus, Ph.D.
Linda Mayes, M.D.
Nancy Olson, M.D.
Joan Poll, M.D.